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TUCKERED OUT:Dynamic Weariness and Fall Management In Fallout: New Vegasv1.6 series - (v1.62 released 08/30/2014)by Greslin

Please see the FAQ at the end of this README for official answers to the questions I'm done answering in comments.

NEW TO v1.6: MCM support! See below for full details.

You've been jogging down the highway north of Novac for, oh, about five miles now. You're lugging about 200 pounds of guns, armor and booze - thank God those 30000 caps don't weigh anything, eh? - and you're just trucking along. When you get ambushed by that Deathclaw and knocked off a thirty-foot cliffside, luckily you'll just bound back up and brush yourself off, fresh and alert as when you woke up for breakfast. Then you can keep running!

Tuckered Out makes you less of a entropy-free running-jumping-falling machine and more of a normal human being. If you take a fall, you'll be hurt more realistically - or at least, you will until you learn how to fall safely. If you run a fair distance, you will get tired and slow down. If you ignore your weariness, you will keep slowing down. If you're hurt or overburdened, you will get tired faster. Finally, if you just keep pushing through the pain, eventually you will pass out.

Luckily, you have options. You can be smarter about how you jump and fall. You can get some sleep and get over your achy muscles. You can Jet up. Or you can just be sensible, crouch to catch your breath, not lug around so damned much, avoid jumping off rooftops and be a bit more careful about getting shot.

But hey, I ain't your mama. It's up to you. Enjoy life on foot in the desert.

Playing Tuckered Out=======================

Tuckered Out changes your Fallout movement experience in a few fundamental ways, by forcing you to be smarter with your movement energy. This can be a lot of fun if you're patient and willing to adapt to circumstances and a somewhat different kind of gameplay.

Much of the time, and especially when you're in tip-top shape, the effects of Tuckered Out will sometimes be so subtle that you may wonder if it's doing anything. You'll start noticing when you get hurt, tired, overencumbered or you try to take a 10+ foot fall. Otherwise, Tuckered Out wants to stay out of your way and be a nudging background influence.

To fully enjoy your Tuckered Out experience:

* Play using Tuckered Out defaults at first, before messing with the MCM settings.* Play in Hardcore. Not a requirement, just a suggestion.* Don't go leaping off buildings if you can avoid it. But if you must, get forward momentum.* Sneak is your friend when taking falls or going downhill on long, steep slopes.* If you can, always fall forwards rather than backwards or sideways. Don't twist around midair.* Don't take a big fall when you can take several small ones. Look for crates, rocks, cars, etc.* Don't overburden.* Take care of your legs and they'll take care of you.* Watch chems, items, mods, etc. that affect Endurance, Agility, Strength and HP.* Keep Buffout and Hydra around for special occasions.* Keep a Jet or two handy for quickly neutralizing weariness.* Don't fall with your weapon out. If you do, you may drop it.* Sleep or wait for two hours to neutralize weariness.* Use gravity and momentum to your advantage.* Make good use of power armor.* Take a break. Crouch to unweary faster, or to weary slower when moving.

Most of all, be conservative with your energy (especially in combat) and be creative with how and where you move. Remember, you're traveling on foot, on often rugged terrain, in an arid, high temperature post-apocalyptic environment. It's a tough world out there. Take care of yourself.

There's a lot of technical stuff below, but you don't really need to read it if you don't want. It's there for FNV players like me who want the details, or who want to suss out possible mod conflicts.

Notes on Scale===============

As you play Tuckered Out, from time to time you'll feel like you're being overpenalized for distance or falls. While this mod isn't perfect and is constantly being adjusted for realism, these particular effects aren't calibration errors.

They're caused by vanilla FNV being so out-of-scale permissive. You're being trained by vanilla gameplay to accept optical illusions.

Distance, for example. In real life, the long road from Goodsprings, NV to Jean Airport (Jean Sky Diving in the game) at I-15 is about 7 miles long, and the loop south and then north up to Las Vegas is about 35 miles. It just seems shorter because you're used to moving faster.

Scale illusions play especially big roles in falls. In vanilla, you can generally take a 30-foot fall without much injury, while in real life, people die from 10-foot falls every day and 20-foot drops are regularly fatal. In vanilla, your perspective is skewed as a result, with fall heights mentally seeming shorter than they actually mathematically are (compared to game scale and player height). You'll see a lot of this especially around the rocks of Honest Hearts, where what seem at first glance to be short falls are in reality 25-foot plummets.

It will take a little while for you to retrain your sense of perspective after starting to play with Tuckered Out. As you get used to realistic fall heights and fatigue distances, you will realize that New Vegas is geometrically much, much larger and more panoramic (and conversely, you're much smaller) than vanilla gameplay lets on. You'll better appreciate how epic your journey is. It's worth the effort.

Notes on Fitness==================

When computing building weariness, Tuckered Out looks first to your END stat. Generally speaking, an END 6 is considered average fitness for an on-foot traveller in the Mojave wastes - anything less means that you're a fairly soft and pasty vault dweller, while anything more means you're hardened to move. An END 9 or 10 means you're a machine, almost walking power armor.

Next to END, encumbrance plays the second strongest role in weariness calculations. If your END is low or penalized, lighten your encumbrance ratio to make better distance.

One note - if suddenly you seem to be tiring out very fast and don't know why, check to see what actor effects are currently being applied to your player. Many of them incur END/AGL penalties, especially if you're using a comprehensive reality mod like IMCN. Those END hits have big Tuckered Out impacts.

How It Works: Weariness=======================

IMPORTANT NOTE: Tuckered Out does NOT use AP or the Fatigue stat as calculation factors in weariness, only using them in a limited manner as output effects. This script's weariness counters are entirely internal to the script.

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.6x:

* MCM support with options to manually change weariness dynamics and notifications. (v1.6)* When weary shut off in MCM, speedmult is set back to game default (100) (v1.62)* When player is breathing hard, hostile NPCs will hear and may alert. (v1.62)

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.5x:

* Leg damage system completely overhauled (v1.53)* Sitting (on a chair, bench, etc.) now doubles rate of weary recovery. (v1.52)* Complete recalibration and rebalancing of the weariness algorithm* Less emphasis on encumbrance, more emphasis on endurance* Sound effects: heavy breathing (at 25%), fast breathing (50%), heartbeat (85%)* Support for vanilla power armor, custom power armor capabilities* AP damage system overhauled to include power armor differences* Project Nevada 2.5 compatibility patch support (v1.51 and up only)* BUGFIX: Speedmult weirdnesses in broken leg scenarios have been fixed.* BUGFIX: Crouch-walk now does not count towards weary. (v1.52)* BUGFIX: Jump disable should no longer also disable spacebar in menus (v1.55)

Tuckered Out adds a dynamic weariness element and variable fall management to New Vegas movement. A huge majority of the time in vanilla play, the weariness system will be your primary experience with Tuckered Out.

This system factors your endurance stat, inventory weight, carrying capacity, agility, current health, leg condition and power armor use to create a "weariness arc", tiring you out quickly and then dragging out the weariness more slowly until you finally pass out and hurt yourself. The better condition you're in, the more forgiving the arc will be. If you have low END, are seriously hurt and carrying near, at or over your capacity, you're going to be in real trouble.

Tracking isn't initialized right away. After you boot Tuckered Out for the first time, or after you leave Doc's house at the game start, a minute or so will pass before the mod attempts to calibrate itself. That should give your other mods a chance to initialize and your movement math to settle down. You will get an initialization message when the mod fires up and starts running. If you already have Tuckered Out installed, replacing it with a new version should force an immediate script reinitialization on startup, without the timer pause.

Uphill motion, jumping and/or moving with your weapon readied will all make you tire faster, impacting at different rates. Downhill motion and/or moving with both legs at 100% health will make you tire a bit more slowly. When you walk, you no longer get weary and start recovering at a very slow rate.

Leg damage adds to your tiring speed, very significantly at high damage levels (negated a bit by Agility). With this mod, you need to watch your health conditions. Some damage won't impact you seriously, but HP and leg damage can quickly compound to create a serious problem. When that happens, stop running and start walking.

At the arc's 25% point, you get a "getting winded" message and will start hearing heavy breathing sounds. You'll start noticeably slowing down, and your AP wlll drop as long as you're still moving (or until you drop below 25 AP).

When you stop moving, your AP will start recovering and your weariness level will start dropping.

Beyond 25%, the effect will grow more pronounced and will level off after a certain point. At 50%, the breathing sounds will quicken. When you get to around 80%, you will get an "exhausted - passing out soon" message, and the breathing will be replaced by a fast heartbeat. When you hear the heartbeat, STOP: that's your warning that you're heading into the danger zone.

At 95%, you will pass out, take a little damage and be unconscious for a little while. (You will not fade to black, but be knocked unconscious via fatigue effect. You will still be vulnerable to combat damage.) You may take minor arm and/or head damage, a bit of HP/AP damage, and your weapon will unready. There is a very small chance that you will drop your weapon in a pass out.

When you hear the heartbeat, you will be considered too exhausted to jump.

Weariness recovers at a small rate (determined by your END stat) naturally when you're not moving. Weary recovers at a very small rate while in PipBoy menus, and resets completely after two hours of sleep or wait. Once you have completely cleared your weariness, you will get a "caught your breath" message.

Tuckered Out also makes minor changes to your base movement speeds, picking up your walking pace slightly and reducing your run modifier to compensate. This way, walking instead of running is more practical of an option. These are flat changes made once when the mod is loaded, and are not subject to dynamic conditions.

Drugs=================================

With Tuckered Out installed, three in-game chemicals take on heightened importance:

1. Buffout. TO makes no changes to Buffout, but the boost it provides alters player stats in a way that translates directly to a Tuckered Out advantage.

2. Jet. For TO's purposes, there are two classes of Jet: the standard stuff that Myron invented in Fallout 2, and enhanced Jet (UltraJet in FO3, Dixon's Jet in FNV). Standard Jet will reset your weariness numbers. Enhanced Jet, on the other hand, will also suspend the weariness counter altogether as long as the drug is in effect.

3. Hydra. Because of its limb restoration properties, you should always have two or three of these on hand. Your limbs will take a lot more damage with Tuckered Out installed. To compensate for this, TO adds a bit more Hydra to the game and makes it easier to find. Hydra also resets weariness the way standard Jet does, and is also considerably more expensive/valuable.

Note: The addiction odds for Jet, Ultra/Dixon Jet and Hydra are substantially increased. I did this to compensate for their increased availability and stronger potency. If you take Hydra, for instance, you now have a 50% chance of getting addicted - the same odds you faced with Dixon's Jet in vanilla FNV. So be warned.

How It Works: Falling With Style=================================

CHANGES IN VERSION 1.6x:

* Fall system may now be turned off in MCM configuration screen. (v1.6)* Hostile NPCs will now hear falls/pratfalls and investigate. (v1.62)

In addition to weariness, this mod also monitors your movement patterns for rapid rates of descending movement, followed by an abrupt stop - i.e., "fall down go boom". Generally, there is already a fall detector in FNV, but it's far too forgiving, basically allowing the PC to leap off a 40-foot building roof with only minor damage. This mod attempts to make fall dynamics a bit more realistic and interesting.

Note: All standard vanilla FNV fall damages still apply, even with power armor - a damaging/lethal fall according to standard rules will still apply. This mod simply adds to what's already there, applying variable damages and effects at lower but realistic heights.

A fall is identified by measuring a significant negative change in the player's Z axis position, followed by a sudden stop, at a final fall angle (calculated based on Pythagorean X/Y axis displacement, against your effective fall height) that exceeds 45 degrees. If a fall of over approximately 10 feet in-game is detected, calculations are made to determine the likelihood and extent of injuries and pratfalls, based on fall distance and other factors.

And who said high school trigonometry isn't useful in real life?

Generally speaking, higher falls, heavy (>50%) encumbrance, existing leg injuries and limited Agility all decrease your odds of safely maintaining your balance and taking the fall without injury. In real life, an off-balance fall can get you anything from a pulled muscle to a broken neck. Balance is important in New Vegas, too.

If you take what the mod recognizes as a hazardous fall, you will take percentage-based HP damage, variable limb damage, and possibly a broken leg or two. These risks go up as your effective fall height goes up.

If you're injured in a fall, a number of things can happen. You'll take some HP damage. Your legs will take some damage, up to and including breaks. If you break a leg, you will be unable to jump. In addition, the HP and leg damage you take in the fall will contribute significantly to your weariness and make falls more dangerous, compounding your problems.

Combat Roll Effect==================

Since fall angles below 45 degrees aren't treated as true falls, in some situations you can employ a "Parkour"-ish effect to avoid fall damage by using forward momentum to your advantage.

If you can get decent run speed or jump distance first, you can sometimes use that momentum to lengthen out the fall and reduce its effective angle - essentially creating the same effect as a combat roll. You can also do this by using interim landing spots (a car, picnic table, crate, etc.) to break a hazardous jump into several safe ones. If you're successful and the fall angles come out at below 45 degrees each, you'll land without injury.

In other words, don't drop straight down hard to the ground if you think you have a shot at rolling the fall out. Instead, attempt to land as far away from the fall edge as you can to ease the downward force of landing. There's a flipside to this, however: if you attempt this via a jump and fail, the upward arc of the jump will naturally *increase* your fall distance and you'll land a bit harder than if you'd just taken the straight fall. It's your risk to run.

Stumbles and Tumbles ========================

One of the most fun aspects of coding this has been in watching emergent effects show up: side effects of the geometry math that unintentionally mirror actual IRL physics effects.

In working to solve a problem with Honest Hearts, a new emergent effect appeared: stumbling. Going down long steep hills, rugged terrain, etc., your character will occasionally sustain very minor fall damage (or, even more rarely, a pratfall or leg break) if you descend too quickly or carelessly. In early TO versions, this often resulted in weird unexplained fatal falls that seemingly generated out of nowhere.

It took me a while to figure out what was happening, but after some analysis I learned that mathematically, Tuckered Out was detecting a stumble (technically, a minifall) and was unsure what to do with it. The Honest Hearts problem seems to have been that this effect was unstable and exaggerated due to how the Havoc physics engine handles things.

Tuckered Out now includes minor stabilizations to help eliminate these random weirdnesses, making the stumble effect workable in gameplay.

When descending or climbing a long (10+ feet or so), steep slope - especially if you have a broken leg or are overencumbered - you may lose your balance and go tumbling down the hill. This can appear as a series of two or more pratfalls while you roll to a stop at the hill base, and can do very significant damage, up to and including killing you.

I left this effect in Tuckered Out because I feel this fairly represents a risk you would run when trying to climb a steep, rocky/sandy 20-foot embankment with a broken leg.

Stumbles and tumbles can be mitigated against by descending crouched in sneak mode, either forward or backward (slightly safer backwards, but less convenient). Jumping or falling onto a downhill slope increases the odds of a stumble and/or tumble.

Safety and Controlled Drops===========================

Another way to make a fall safer is to do a controlled drop by crouching into sneak mode first. As your legs are now bent, and you likewise land crouched, falling in this manner applies a mild bonus to your effective fall height, computing the fall as though it was taken from a shorter distance. This can help you take a fall in some cases with minimal injuries.

A further safety bonus can be had by doing a "safety drop" - crouching and facing backwards as you drop. Falling from a structure, this would be the equivalent of grabbing the edge and lowering yourself down.

These safety moves are very useful and highly recommended when moving rapidly down a steep, long hill (such as those found Honest Heart's Zion Canyon). Otherwise, a stumble is possible and you may take damage on your descent.

Spring/Crouch Jumping========================

As of version 1.5, jumping from a crouch - springing - increases jump height by 25%, but brings with it a 50% higher weary penalty than a normal jump. Power armor slightly reduces crouch jump gain.

Burned Man Effect=====================

Under rare circumstances you might channel Joshua Graham and survive an otherwise lethal fall (14+ feet) unscathed. To trigger this effect, you must have great stats: END 9+, LCK 9+, AGL 6+. Even then, it only happens a very rare 10% of the time.

If you get a Burned Man fall, the fall height will effectively be halved and you will get a message acknowledging your feat. As of v1.6, nailing the Burned Man fall will also get you the Burning Grace perk, which permanently cuts your overall pratfall odds by 75%. This is the only way to get the Burning Grace perk.

NOTE: This effect does not apply to any fall height considered hazardous or fatal by the vanilla gameplay rules.

Pratfalls=========

If your balance is off, your Agility is down, your legs are already hurt, or you just have a bad day, you may lose your balance on landing and do a pratfall, getting knocked on the ground (not unconscious, just off your feet). Pratfalls become more likely as you take higher and harder falls.

Your pratfall odds are adjusted for your in-combat condition, Perception stat and fall orientation. Pratfall odds are lower if you're facing in the direction you're falling (<10º off fall bearing), a bit higher if you fall sideways, and significantly higher if you fall backwards (>45º). Also, if you happen to be in combat when you fall, you have a 35-65% chance (based on Perception) of avoiding a pratfall, regardless of the direction you are facing.

Falling with significant leg damage (+50% total, either one broken leg or two badly injured ones) means an automatic pratfall, regardless of other factors.

When you pratfall, you may take minor arm or head limb damage, as well as minor AP/HP damage. If your weapon was readied when you fell, you have a 40-50% chance of it becoming unreadied in the pratfall. There is also a minor chance that you will actually drop the weapon - if yours is unreadied in the fall, be sure to look around for it in case you dropped it. All of these odds are mitigated a bit by your Agility stat.

To avoid unreadying or dropping your weapon in a pratfall, simply unready it before you fall. Your weapon is only a factor if you fall with it unholstered.

A pratfall additionally causes a temporary 1 min., 5 point critical chance penalty. If you pratfall in combat, this will slightly negatively impact your ability to successfully make critical hits.

Noise============================

As of v1.62, several Tuckered Out states create noise that local hostile NPCs may hear and investigate. If you are breathing heavy (i.e., weary), or if you fall - or especially pratfall - these circumstances now create detection events of varying strength and range. These events will alert nearby hostiles, who will come looking for you.

Keep this in mind when trying to move stealthily in a dangerous environment: they can hear you!

This feature may be disabled or reenabled in the MCM config menu.

Power Armor============================

Tuckered Out supports any set of power armor in the vanilla ESMs, including those not found in-game.

Wearing a set of working power armor significantly amplifies the END influences in the weariness arc. It also changes how AGL impacts falls, stumbles and pratfalls. Depending on the type of armor you're wearing, these changes can be very significant.

For purposes of Tuckered Out, all power armors are grouped into four classes:

CLASS 1: Postwar modern (Enclave) and equivalent.

This is as good as it gets. Built from lightweight materials, very tough and reasonably energy efficient, this represents the state of the power armor arts in 2277. In vanilla, this means primarily Enclave armor. However, as in vanilla FNV Enclave armor doesn't appear in-game, the only playable Class 1 to appear in regular vanilla gameplay is the unique Gannon Tesla suit. (It's treated by FNV as an advanced unique version of APA.)

CLASS 2: Prewar top of the line and equivalent. T51b and Remnants.

This represents the best that 2077 American defense spending had to offer: the T51b. Expensive to make and rare as a result, these were tactical armors used for special occasions. Like Class 1, they're made from very tough lightweight plastics, are driven by fusion reactors and are far more agile and energy efficient than their predecessors. They don't perform as well as Class 1, but still a lot better than Class 3.

According to lore, early Enclave APA (Advanced Power Armor) from the Fallout 2 era is roughly equivalent to T51b - despite the best efforts of Enclave engineers, APA was only a minor improvement over T51B (and was prone to prototype explosions). As the Remnants armor is essentially Fallout 2-era APA, it's ranked here as a Class 2.

CLASS 3: Prewar standard infantry. T45d and equivalent.

According to lore, T45d was the first "walking tank" power armor to be successfully combat-deployed in the 2060's Alaska campaigns. An STR+2/AGL-2 load mover, it's heavy, horribly energy inefficient, and not something to run around in. The steel construction does, however, make it very damage-resistant, and its lack of agility is made up for with the added strength necessary to effectively wield heavy guns. Where Class 2 is a bit more Iron Man, Class 3 is more like the Sherman tank in WWII - its primary practicality was that it worked, and that it could be mass produced in wartime at reasonable expense.

If you're wearing T45, don't expect a lot of agility or endurance performance. Its primary value is in durability and lifting strength.

Class 4: Nonfunctional but playable. NCR Salvage, etc.

This isn't really a power armor at all, but the gutted remains of one. In vanilla FNV gameplay, this class only applies to one armor: NCR Salvage, essentially a set of T45d with the servos and other electronics stripped out. It doesn't require PA training, but on the other hand, it's a big pile of heavy sheet metal without any sort of power assist. Expect serious penalties in Tuckered Out for wearing Class 4 - it's only value is that it can take punishment.

Any unidentified power armor (i.e., mods) will be recognized by default as Class 2. When you put on a working suit of power armor, you will get a "leg stabilizer" message that identifies the class.

If you are wearing power armor and are helmeted, the normal breathing sound effects are replaced with power armor equivalents.

Also, while the road to winded (0-25% weary) is only moderately extended when wearing power armor, the center part of the arc (50-75%) should widen significantly. In Class 1 or 2 armor, your real endurance gains will be realized over distance.

Finally, Tuckered Out is calibrated for vanilla gameplay. If you happen to be a user of Imp's excellent Powered Power Armor mod, the performance numbers will be skewed somewhat, as PPA armor has some stat revisions over vanilla versions. I'm currently working on a PPA compatibility patch that should balance out these issues, while classing the new PPA armors.

For those using or coding custom power armor mods, there is a Class 5 - "user defined". Included in the Tuckered Out package is a text file explaining how to code and balance custom power armor compatibility patches.

Perks==============

Tuckered Out now supports four perks, which become available at levels between 10 and 20. They are:

Desert Wind. You have become a master at efficient run-sneaking. In standard TO play, run-sneaking moderately reduces the impact encumbrance has on weary. With this perk, that reduction is doubled.

Deep Breathing. This perk simulates expanded lung capacity by extending the weariness arc by 25%. You'll take longer to get winded and your overall performance will be improved. (The 25% upgrade is calculated *after* any changes made to API_MaxWeary.)

Legs of Iron. This perk reduces leg damage incurred in TO falls (i.e., under 35-40 feet) by 25%. Does not affect HP damage, or any leg damages caused by vanilla fall handling.

Mojave Traceur. In standard TO play, falls that land at greater than 45 degrees aren't considered true falls, and are ignored. As of v1.53, there is an adjustment in place that applies an angle penalty for falls higher than 20 feet, making it near impossible to combat roll at these heights. With this perk, that adjustment is removed, allowing you to successfully execute a safety roll at heights of 20+ feet.

A fifth perk, Burning Grace, is only granted when/if the player achieves a Burned Man fall (see above). This perk permanently cuts pratfall odds by 75%.

Underwater ==================

In versions prior to v1.55, Tuckered Out did not distinguish underwater movement from an above ground fall, and so it often confused the two. This resulted in unexplained and sudden pratfalls and broken limbs while swimming underwater, which in turn made completing vanilla quests like "Volare!" extremely frustrating.

This was likewise an extremely frustrating problem to solve, as there seems to be no clean way to determine if the PC is underwater via GECK functions or animation checks, and doing so by just turning off the fall algorithm in certain parts of certain cells would only necessitate endless hacked compatibility patches. After tons of physics testing, I think I have a workable solution.

Tuckered Out now watches for subtle variations in descent velocity that express significant differences between a gravity fall (which tends to pick up speed) and underwater movement (mostly steady speed). If the velocity range is below a certain point in vanilla FNV, you're almost certainly moving underwater. If TO decides that the "fall" happened underwater, it's ignored.

This is still an experimental feature, though I've successfully tested it in and around Lake Mead, Lake Mead Caves and in the rivers of Honest Hearts without problems. It should likewise work with any other DLC and mod without the need for compatibility patches. In above ground fall testing, all jumps and falls have registered as normal.

NOTE: Any mod that alters swimming speed or gravitational constants, or that artificially accelerates PC movement, will probably break this feature and create unstable effects. There's nothing I can do about it.

Compatibility=============

NOTE: There are now IMCN compatibility patches for v1.55 (available as an optional file on Nexus) and v1.56 (included in the release RAR). You can play IMCN/TO well without them, but they reconcile some interoperability issues for Jet and Hydra. Load low in your order, below both IMCN and TO.

Anyway..

So far, so good. Tuckered Out is being constantly and extensively tested, and as of v1.5 has only turned up very minor conflicts and incompatibilities - most of the time, too small to even notice. This includes IMCN, Project Nevada, JSawyer, and a long list of others.

This is a small mod that doesn't make many changes to fixed game assets, instead recalibrating movement conditions in play. Your odds of serious conflict should be fairly low, but I can't promise that they won't happen.

Risky areas:

* Any other mod that changes movement speed (speedmult) on the fly. So far tests with various sprint and damage mods have all performed well, but conflicts with untested mods are still possible.

* Any other mod that messes with fall/jump base settings. While I've done my best to accommodate any such changes on a dynamic basis, any mod that tweaks base fall heights, game scale or jump heights is likely going to throw TO's math off.

Compatibility problems so far have been very rare. Try out the mod with your mod set, and if something's not working, please let me know and I'll try to help sort out the conflict. I'm releasing Tuckered Out to the mod community because I'm hoping that the input of other Fallout diehards can help me improve it.

Imp's Powered Power Armor should mostly work as is, but a compatibility patch (being developed now) will be necessary to preserve a balance of PPA/TO functionality. Expect a moderate performance skew (out of the box, PPA armors under TO will perform better than intended), and I can safely guess that at least a couple of the armor mods won't work the way standard PPA means them to. A more comprehensive PPA compatibility patch is a major priority for Tuckered Out's 1.6 release series.

To minimize compatibility problems, please upgrade to the latest version of Tuckered Out.

Tuckered Out API (beta)=======================

CHANGES IN v1.6:

* MaxWeary changed from static number to modifier. Will break mods coded for pre-1.6.

Tuckered Out has a small set of variables available to compatibility patch coders. TO's math is growing pretty complicated, but the following variables get applied after all final calculations.

The float MOD values are percentiles applied to those final values (i.e., 1.02 to API_ModWeary would increase the overall weary damage rate by 2%). API_MaxWeary (default: 1) changes the size of the overall weariness data range. A higher number should lengthen the weariness arc.

This is purely a beta feature for now, and has not been tested much yet. Use at your own risk.

Note: Tuckered Out does NOT attempt to ever reset these values back to default. If you change them in an effect script, be sure to include code that changes them back.

MCM (Mod Configuration Menu)============================

Since I first started writing this in early 2012, I've learned that in general, mod lovers tend to prefer being able to customize their game experiences. Who knew? Tuckered Out does a lot of complicated stuff, and really implements a more-or-less feature complete falling and fatigue system in-game.

Realism is in the eye of the beholder, and up until now, the eye has been my own. I've been asked many times for a decent method for customizing Tuckered Out functionality in favor of other interpretations of post-apocalyptic reality.

As of v1.6, Tuckered Out now supports MCM (Mod Configuration Menu). I plan to expand on this throughout the 1.6 series, but for now this feature offers some often requested options for customizing Tuckered Out behavior to your liking.

Current settings are:

Play Type. Now you can choose to use the falling system, weariness system, or both. (Default: Both)

Max Weary. This multiplier shortens and lengthens the weariness progression arc, scaling the entire weariness system up or down. The higher this value is, the more forgiving the fatigue system will be. (Default: 1.0)

Mod Weary. This multiplier modifies the weariness damage rate. The higher the number, the faster you will get tired. (Default: 1.0)

Mod Recover. This multiplier modifies the weariness recovery rate. The higher the number, the less time recovery should take. (Default: 1.0)

Mod Prat Odds Combat. This multiplier does the same thing as MultPratOdds, only in combat situations. (Default: 1.0)

v1.61 also introduced the following MCM settings:

Sound on Weary. You can now choose how TO notifies you when you get tired: breathing sounds, text notifications, both or neither. (Default: Both)

Jump Disabling. By default, TO disables player jumping when your legs take steep damage or when you're exhausted. This setting lets you turn this feature on or off. (Default: On)

Fall Damage Modifier. When you fall, your legs take damage. The higher this value, the more damage your legs will take on average. (Default: 1)

Encumbrance Impact. In both weariness and falling, your encumbrance level plays a significant role. This option lets you adjust how significant of a role it plays. Affects both weary and fall. (Default: 1.0)

NPCs Hear. If you breathe heavy or fall down, local hostile NPCs will now hear you and may go on alert. This option lets you switch this feature off or on. (Default: On)

Right now, MCM functionality doesn't extend much to the falling system, but I intend to add more falling-related modifiers in the next few Tuckered Out releases. It's mainly a matter of figuring out the best ways to do it without royally screwing it up in the process.

Obviously, you will need MCM installed for this to work. Without MCM, Tuckered Out should run at all defaults.

This is VERY much an experimental feature.

Requirements=============

This mod was developed, tested, written and refined - mainly through trial and error - on the vanilla Fallout: New Vegas engine. While you may have some luck getting it to work on Fallout 3, this use is currently unsupported and likely to not work as intended. (I have, however, verified firsthand that it works fine with TTW.)

NVSE is required. Seriously. Tuckered Out won't work without it.

If you want to take advantage of the new MCM-related features of v1.6, you will need to install MCM. You can find it on the Nexus.

Installation=============

Unrar the package into your New Vegas install directory and place the ESP low in the load order.

Uninstallation===============

Remove the ESP(s). It shouldn't muck up your save games.

FAQ=======================

These are all actual questions I get. I won't answer them anymore in comments - these are the official answers.

Q: I can run farther in real life without getting tired than I can with this mod. Aren't you being harsh on weariness?

A: No, I'm not. Try running a mile with 200 pounds of stuff on your back, in a desert climate and on uneven ground. See how fast you get tired.

Q: I feel like I'm getting unfairly hurt for really short falls. What gives?

A: Video game physics, is what gives. When I began developing TO, I wanted to approximate the dangers of real life falling as best I could, so I consulted OSHA safety studies on the subject. I then measured comparative Fallout game objects with average player height (which I took for a basic six feet), and calibrated the Tuckered Out engine to reasonably simulate fall height probabilities based on OSHA workplace statistics. You'd be quite surprised how fall-intolerant human life really is.

Q: But..

A: That's what the MCM menu is for. If you want something more forgiving (or even harsher), you can made the appropriate adjustments there.

Q: When are you going to get that !@! PPA compatibility layer finished?

A: When I get there. There hasn't been a huge uproar of demand for it, so I can't say I feel seriously pressured. I cycle through my games - usually Civ 5, Eve Online, Fallout and others - and when I make it back to Fallout, I usually end up tinkering with TO at some point. Otherwise I don't touch it except for the occasional serious bugfix. At some point it'll be a priority and I'll get it done. Honestly though, TO runs pretty well with Powered Power Armor as it stands.

Q: Will you port Tuckered Out to Fallout 3 or Skyrim?

A: I've thought about FO3, but probably not. If you want to play Tuckered Out with FO3, my best advice would be to take TTW (Tale of Two Wastelands) for a spin. As far as Skyrim is concerned, they're two entirely different engines and modding languages, so we're not talking about a port so much as a complete rewrite. Ugh. I'll consider doing a Skyrim version when Fallout 4 hits the streets, and I can write a version for that. Presumably FO4 will be based on Papyrus and the Skyrim engine, so backporting it then shouldn't be a problem. That's my current plan, anyway.

Q: I keep falling down stairs and/or hills!

A: Stop running down them, especially with 200 pounds of crap on your back! WALK. Be CAREFUL. It's a dangerous world out there.

Acknowledgments=================

Thanks to my wife for putting up with my Fallout-related nerdiness.

Special thanks in particular to Jeoshua for his eager willingness to beat this mod senseless in playtesting, to point out where I screwed up and to offer some really great ideas on making the system more realistic.

Thanks to Scorpial, phoenix0113 and everyone else who dove right into Tuckered Out on day one, several of whom were also helpful in nailing down my last mod, Lean Start Gear. Their ideas and comments were instrumental in turning this mod from a little running hack into something far more interesting, both to code and to play. Thanks for the endorsements!

Thanks to Arwen for the original inspiration with her Reality Tweaks overhaul, which completely rebooted my expectations of what a Fallout game could be.

Thanks to our cat, Monkey, whose constant Parkour-ish living room acrobatics during Tuckered Out coding has been a great source of inspiration and ideas.

Thanks to TheEpicUsername for locating and providing suitable female breathing sounds, allowing more feminine characters to finally stop sounding like men in drag.

And of course, thanks to my friend Laura for her undying faith in the practical power of math.

An alternate game start that keeps the vanilla opening intact, but eliminates a few pointless time wasters and significantly picks up the pace of the Doc Mitchell opening sequence. It also starts you with health conditions on par with a head gunshot wound and a two day coma, and dramatically reduces the amount of equipment you have available at the start.

Feel like vanilla VATS throws off combat gameplay balance? Never really understood how constantly looking at your Pip-Boy is supposed to help you better aim a .357 rifle in real time during tense combat situations? This mod limits VATS availability to combat situations where electronic target assist actually makes sense.